Most days I get ahead of the morning. I’m up and busy with the mindless tasks that paradoxically fill my mind. It’s good to be engaged, interested, anticipating the challenges and rewards of the day unfolding.

Then there are days I awake anxious and for no particular reason. I don’t indulge these moods but despite my best efforts they prevail. I become disconcerted and irritable. Little things seem difficult, difficult things seem insurmountable.

On days like these I’m more keenly aware of intolerance and bigotry, of ignorance. I despair at people’s motives and am appalled by their actions. Frustration gives way to anger, gives way to cynicism, gives way to a feeling of hopelessness.

I’m running out of optimism. I know for a fact that everything is not going to be all right.

I would surrender, but to whom? I would retreat, but to where?

Nothing constructive or creative will happen until I shake this pall of despondency. I gear up and head out.

Even as I approached them my mood begins to lift.

The Maples of Kensington. Eight stately giants – so huge, so proud, so magnificently impersonal.

These are Bigleaf Maples (Acer macrophyllum), the largest of the Maple family perhaps 300 years old, maybe 50 metres high. Being tightly clustered they have developed a narrow crown supported by a trunk free of branches for about half its length.

I stand beneath them, I press my palms against their bark, I take a deep breath and listen.

And they speak to me.

High in their lofty branches the leaves rush and whisper and their sound soothes and reassures. Slowly their benign energy renews my confidence and restores my vitality. The desolation passes, and I feel unburdened, at peace and prepared.

Indian Summer

The summer had inhaled And held its breath too long*

A strange mood ascends on me as summer slowly draws to an end.

The days have a listless quality, time seems suspended. There’s a feeling of deja vu – though not of an experience, rather an emotion, a dream sense, vague and inarticulate.

When I was a kid the entire family would walk here from our home on East 4th. Sometimes I’d go with my neighbourhood buddies. It was a different world then, no structured play dates, we roamed free seeking and finding adventures. Most of these people are gone now, yet standing on the shore I can hear their happy voices, catch glimpses of them splashing into the green water.

This lake was witness to many rites of passage and figures prominently in my writing. The beach is small and less crowded than I remember. The raft I nearly drowned trying to swim to is not so far. Could it possibly be sixty years since I swam here?

Suddenly I’m enveloped in a sense of longing for a phantom life that almost was, but never will be.

I run across the hot sand, splash through the shallows and dive in.

The water is cool, slightly murky, exactly as I remember it and for brief seconds it washes the years away. I kick hard, go deeper, then roll over. Up through the depths the sun sparkles, shards of diffused light. I’m eight years old until I break the surface and look back to shore.

They’re gone.

And I’m still here.

*From Coming Back to Me, written by Marty Balin, On Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, 1967

NEVER HAVE WE BEEN MORE CONNECTEDNEVER HAVE WE BEEN SO ALONE

So, about that short story…

I started writing the idea back in December 2016 while I was passing through Kansai International Airport. I was just starting my winter vacation and was thinking about cracking on with Glade. Unfortunately, those good intentions got lost in transit and ended up somewhere else entirely (apparently, they ended up on an island passing the time playing cards with a Lost and confused manuscript). They have since returned to the wardrobe I tentatively call ‘home’, having stowed away on a passing cargo ship before hitching a ride back up to Osaka and making themselves a cup of tea.

So, while my good intentions and I parted ways, I found myself stumbling upon an idea whilst making my way through the airport. One thing led to another and I ended up with a short story.

The story is called 01134.

Life is sometimes that phone call

you wish you had never got.

That train you wished you had missed.

That person you wish you had never met.

Sometimes we take a wrong turn. We lose our way.

We slip through the cracks.

Sometimes it's our fault. Sometimes it's not.

Sometimes we are nudged, other times we are pushed,

screaming into that empty abyss.

Sometimes we just close our eyes and fall.

For Tatsuya, it may already be too late...

01134 is psychological fiction set in Japan. The blurb doesn’t really give much away, but… well, there is this fella you see… called Tatsuya… and he is in love.

Those that have read advance copies have described it as being ‘sad’ and/or ‘unsettling’. So, if you like feeling sad and/or unsettled then this is just the book for…. umm… yeah… it’s also a ‘cracking good read’, too. Honest.

There will be no separate cover reveal this time around since… well… you can probably see it on the right of your screen or at the end of this post. The woman on the cover is a singer in an up-and-coming Japanese rock band and a part-time model. I searched high and low for the look I wanted. Trust me, it’s not as easy as you would think to try to convince someone to pose for a cover shoot, least of all in Japan! Fortunately, Asuka graciously agreed to let me take some shots and, well… all I can say is that the cover looks beautiful in print.

01134 is available in digital and print from Amazon stores near and far (well, quite far).

In the meantime, here is the opening…

12:12

It’s 12:12am. The white numbers on the screen are crisp and clear in the dark. I should be asleep.

Tiredness drapes her arms around me in an attempt to draw me back beneath the covers. I try to shrug her off.

The screen on my phone dims as I wait. Time no longer ticks. It is digital now. Clinical and perfect. A constant reminder of the emptiness that flows through our quiet lives.

I blink. The screen now reads 12:13am. I let the screen darken and set the phone down on the floor by my bed. Tiredness whispers sweetly in my ear and I don’t think that I can resist her for much longer. I’m not sure I want to.

I reach out for my phone again. The screen springs to life and I type in my four-digit passcode. The screen shifts and I check my messages, hoping that perhaps I missed one. I didn’t.

I drop the phone back on the floor, lie back and close my eyes. Sleep eludes me.

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